Zillow inks deal with 11 newspaper chains

In what Zillow.com president Lloyd Frink is calling a “groundbreaking partnership,” the Seattle online real estate startup has inked a deal to provide its home valuation and neighborhood information to 282 newspapers. In return, the newspapers — including large papers such as The San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News — can now post classified listings and open house information on the Zillow Web site.

The alliance is to kick off early next year, with other newspaper companies expected to join. The launch partners include some of the biggest newspaper chains in the country, including Journal Register Company; Lee Enterprises; MediaNews Group; Morris Communications Company; Paddock Publications; Pittsburgh Tribune-Review; The E.W. Scripps Company; and Hearst Newspapers (publisher of the Seattle P-I.)

A Zillow spokeswoman said she was 99 percent sure that the P-I was not one of the 282 newspapers that will incorporate Zillow data. I have a call into Hearst to confirm.

“The tremendous local reach of our newspapers and online sites, coupled with our strong local sales forces, provides a powerful springboard for this partnership with Zillow,” said Lincoln Millstein, vice president of Hearst Newspapers, in a statement.

Microsoft’s Don Dodge said the deal, coupled with a newspaper partnership with HotJobs, signals that “maybe there is hope for newspapers.”

I’ve written before about Zillow’s move into citizen journalism with its neighborhood information of local restaurants, crime statistics, etc. With the partnership announced today, a natural extension would be to populate those neighborhood pages on Zillow with headlines from the local newspaper.

Sarah Mann, a spokeswoman at Zillow, said there is nothing “concrete” at this point in terms of using newspaper content. But she said it is a possibility, adding that there are “lots of interesting things we could do.”

Zillow, which raised $30 million in venture funding in September, claims about 4 million visitors per month.

UPDATE: The P-I is not part of the deal, with Lincoln Millstein of Hearst Newspapers saying that the business functions of the P-I are handled by the joint operating agreement with The Seattle Times. Millstein said that Zillow has tremendous interest in a Seattle newspaper relationship, but that deal must be funneled through the JOA. The JOA — a contract under which The Seattle Times performs key business functions for the P-I in exchange for a larger share of the joint profits — makes it tougher to set up advertising and content partnerships in Seattle such as the one announced today with Zillow, said Millstein.

He said it was too early to describe how the Zillow information — including the home valuations known as Zestimates — might appear on the newspaper Web sites of the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle and other Hearst newspapers. But Millstein said he is confident in Zillow’s approach, calling it the “right model in real estate.”

“In a few years, they are going to be a force,” he added.

As to the accuracy of Zillow’s home valuations, Millstein said they are “getting better” and expects them to normalize as more data is accumulated in different markets.

“It makes sense to partner with the future and not with the now,” said Millstein, adding that the Zillow valuations are “not as bad as what people think.”

UPDATE: The AP’s Jessica Mintz covers the Zillow news with this lead: “Faced with the threat of losing more classified ads to online competitors, some newspaper publishers are looking to a Web real-estate information company to help stay in the game.”

UPDATE 11/14/2007: Speaking at the National Association of Realtors conference in Las Vegas today, Zillow Chief Executive Rich Barton is formally announcing a program by which real estate companies can automatically feed for-sale listings to the Zillow Web site and place broker marketing on individual homes that have sold. Those participating in the feed distribution program include ERA Real Estate, Intero Real Estate Services, Prudential California Realty, Realty USA, Realestate.com, RE/MAX Allegiance, United Country Real Estate and ZipRealty.